This is not about getting back to nature. It is about understanding we’ve never left.

We are deep in our nature every day. Were up to our ears in it. It's under our feet, it is in our lungs, it runs through our veins. We are not visitors here. We weren’t set down to enjoy the view. We were born here and we’re part of it—like any ant, fish, rock, or blade of grass. This connection is as personal as it is fundamental. It can’t be proved with theorems and diagrams. You either feel it or you don’t.

Sierra Club members feel it.

Maybe it came to you on a mountain trail, or on a riverbank, or at a windowsill watching a spider’s unthinking intelligence unfold. Simply put, it’s the sudden conviction that there is something out there, something wonderful. And it is much, much bigger than you. A revelation like this could easily overwhelm a person. We choose to let it inspire us.

Nature, vastly complex and infinitely subtle, is our perfect metaphor. Related to everything, signifying everything, it is the spring where we go to renew our spirit. And it, in turn, asks something of us. It compels us to take responsibility and then to take action.

Look, there is nothing inevitable about the future of our environment. A poisoned stream can get worse, stay the same, or get better. It depends largely on what we choose to do. That simple belief, backed by 100 years of effort and result, is what drives the Sierra Club.

So, forget the grim cliché of the selfless environmentalist. When you accept your connection to nature, suddenly you can’t look at the world without seeing something very personal in it. You are part of it, and you work for the planet because it gives you joy to do so. You work for the planet because you belong to it.